Barack Obama is getting plenty of flak for not acknowledging that he was wrong about the "surge," i.e. the wisdom of escalating a war we should never have started in the first place – and this is being compared to John McCain's stubborn refusal to admit...
The first historian, the Ionian Greek Herodotus, known as the "father of history," has also been called the "father of lies" because of his reluctance to spoil a good story with the truth. Today the neoconservatives twist history to fit their...
Updated at 6:15 p.m. EDT, July 30, 2008At least eight Iraqis were killed and 12 others were wounded during the latest attacks. The D.O.D. reported the death of a Marine, while the parents of a gravely injured U.S. soldier are expected to remove him from life support...
Checking out the news this morning I came across a news article from AFP describing charges recently filed against four US servicemen who were stationed in Iraq in 2007. The charges included conspiracy to commit premeditated murder, among others. According to the...
"We have to be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in," says Barack Obama of the U.S. war in Iraq. Wise counsel. But is Barack taking his own advice? For he pledges to shift two U.S. combat brigades, 10,000 troops, out of Iraq and into...
Many official and unofficial proponents of a long-term US military presence in Iraq are dismissing Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's demand for a US timeline for withdrawal as political posturing, assuming that he will abandon it under pressure. But that demand...
Updated at 5:08 p.m. EDT, July 29, 2008Shi'ite pilgrims descended on Baghdad for the culmination of a religious observance. A vehicle curfew in the city has caused newspapers there to cease publication for the day, so reports of violence are scant. At least three...
With a bit of foreign travel looming on the horizon, it was time to renew the passport of my youngest child. I gathered the requisite papers and brought them to the post office. A few weeks later, the coveted document arrived. I opened it up, expecting to find what I...
The increased likelihood of war with Iran has raised a chorus of speculation and genuine shock: how can it be that our leaders don't recognize the potentially crippling consequences of such a course? The economic blowback alone would be enough to send the world...
To offer a bit of context for Chalmers Johnson's latest post on the privatization of U.S. intelligence, it's important to know just how lucrative that intelligence "business" has become. According to the latest estimate, the cumulative 2009 intelligence budget for the...
